DON’T
century.” Sounds quite romantic doesn’t it? Young people, full of hope and dreams… Just me? In my experience, however, the term is often used in a derogatory sense. “damn millennials have no work ethic” “millennials are so entitled” “millennials are always on their phone”. You get the picture. As a crew agent of some 12 years, I’m hearing with increased regularity that these so called “millennials” are, quite frankly, “ruining everything” when it comes to the yachting industry. Bit harsh, and a very sweeping generalisation, but as there’s not usually this much smoke without fire, it’s a safe assumption to say that the new younger generation coming into yachting is very, very different to the old salty sea dog crowd.
A
We can’t deny that the world has changed dramatically in the past 10-20 years, and as such, hasn’t the yacht industry too? Is it really fair that we stay set in our ways
ccording to google’s online dictionary, a millennial is “a person reaching young adulthood in the early 21st
BLAME THE MILLENNIALS
ERICA LAY ASKS WHETHER WE SHOULD REALLY BE BLAMING THE MILLENNIALS FOR HOW THEY’VE TURNED OUT OR SHOULD WE BE BLAMING SOMEONE, OR SOMETHING ELSE? ARE THEY NOT JUST THE PRODUCT OF MODERN SOCIETY? FOR SURE, THEY LACK SOME BASIC LIFE SKILLS THAT WE ALL TOOK FOR GRANTED
and expect the new younger generation of seafarers to adapt to our way of doing things? Do we really want to be the older bunch who start every sentence with “Back in my day…” because I for one fear turning into a grandparent prematurely.
Let’s consider technology. Back in our day (sorry…) we didn’t all carry phones. When we were kids, the rules were “make sure you eat something” and the famous “be home when the streetlights come on”. Oh the freedom we enjoyed! Us Northern Europeans had the longest summer days ever, summer holidays were 6 long weeks of shenanigans. We were out ‘til all hours and our mums didn’t worry. We all stayed together and as such, formed important bonds and knew instinctively how to look out for each other. Our parents trusted us to come home when told to, and gave us the responsibility to solve our own problems. If anything serious happened we’d go find an adult (usually the nearest parent) to help us, if we couldn’t sort it
out ourselves. Our upbringings gave us responsibility, independence, problem solving skills, social skills, teamwork abilities and trust. Our parents relied on us knowing right from wrong and let’s face it, we all broke rules but we learned from our mistakes, or learned to not get caught. Either way we learned new skills….
Kids today don’t get that because they’re not allowed out to play like we were. Parents are frightened for their safety and honestly who can blame them. Everyone I’ve spoken to remembers there always being one man in the village they were told to steer clear of and not necessarily told why. Perhaps he was grumpy? Perhaps it was worse. Back in our day (apologies) individuals with paedophile tendencies or violent streaks etc didn’t have easy access to material. Fast forward to now, and anyone can find any depraved, violent, sexual, and/or illegal images or videos on the internet and even engage with other like minded people to encourage that behaviour. How terrifying
32 | SPRING 2019 | ONBOARD
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